Submission + - Marlinspike's solution to the SSL CA problem (convergence.io)
Trevelyan writes: In his Blackhat talk on the past and future of SSL (you can find the video and slide if you really try, or just buy them from BH) Moxie Marlinspike explains the problems of SSL today, and the history of how it came to be so. He then goes on to not only propose a soution, but he's implemented it as well: Convergence, it'll let you turn off all those untrustable CAs in you browser and still safely use HTTPS. It even works with self-signed certificates. You still need to trust someone, but not forever like CAs. The system has 'Notaries', which you can ask anonymously for their view on a certificates authenticity. You can pool Notaries for a consensus, and add/remove them at any time.